Sunday 5 October 2014

The best ever poem for Autumn

It does seem that Autumn inspires just as much poetry as Spring. Both seasons are a passage into a more extreme one. The light breezes and soft sunshine of Spring lead us gently into the  hot Summer days and balmy nights. The mellow sunshine and rosy sunsets of Autumn, the nip in the air and the whirling leaves get us ready to brace the cold bitter winds and long dark days of Winter.
Probably the most quoted sentence of a poem in Autumn is by John Keats (1796-1821)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ...

To Autumn


Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees;
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
  To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
  Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
  Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
  Thou watchest the latest oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring' Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day;
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red breast whistles from a garden croft;
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

I hope you enjoy reading that lovely poem and look out for all the signs of Autumn that are mentioned.

Pomegranates bring colour to the Autumn table


Damsons ripen to make jam

Late flowers for the bees

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